Castle's past comes to the present
by sharpe26
Summary: After Kate gets shot, Castle withdraws. Esposito wants to straighten up the author and in the proces discovers that Castle has a past...
1. Chapter 1

For the past three months she had been in a medicinally induced coma, and he had been comatose, to the point of not writing anymore. He spend everyday at the hospital, sitting by her side and reading to her from his own work, from the competition, anything he could find, anything to get her back.

It was Lanie Parish that changed it.

The one time their paths crossed after the funeral she physically threw him out of her best friends hospital room. Later that night she had talk with her boyfriend. Although Esposito would later confess that Lanie did all the talking and he did all the listening, so, how could he refuse?

One of the few rainy summer mornings that made the City of New York shine as brightly as usual Esposito found himself ringing the doorbell on Castle's loft. Alexis opened the door " Detective Eposito, you're here for dad, right?"

Esposito smiled the tales of little Castle her intelligence weren't fantasy at all. " Yeah, where is he?" Alexis pointed to her dad's office. In an usually determined pace he stalked of.

A brief touch of the door showed it was slightly ajar. " Castle?"

Esposito slowly entered the writing office of his longtime friend who seemed to the asleep near his laptop. Everywhere there was paper strewn about. Some were prints, others were scribbles of scenes as far as he could see and tell. The air in the office seemed more then a little stale. And there was the bottle. It wasn't the usual Chateau Neuf but the stronger stuff, and half of it was already gone. A number of bottles were strewn about the office

" How long has he been like this?" Esposito had heard the door creak and knew Alexis had followed him in.

" Every night since..." They both knew what she meant.

Alexis watched as the burly detective headed for the sleeping form of her father. He studied him briefly and then did something she didn't expect. He grabbed her dad by the left ear and twisted it.

" APPLES! APPLES! APPLES! APPLES!"

" So good to see you're awake Castle." the best selling writer could see a certain feral smile on the detective's face. "Now what's this I hear about you moping around?"


	2. Chapter 2

He was panting hard, trying to keep up and having a little luck but then, when dealing with this particular NYPD detective he figured he'd give his best. He'd owe it to her to try.

" GUN!" giving off the best impression of a European soccer player, best selling author Richard Castle slid behind the wreck of an old car and removed his Sig automatic pistol. Coming up from behind that cover he rapidly unloaded three rounds into the target his training officer, Detective Javier Esposito had called out.

" Where's that coming from Castle?"

" I wasn't always a writer." Castle got up and brushed himself of.

" It's just that with the way you've been hitting the bottle and all the other stuff I heard I expected something different." Castle didn't answer back but seemed interested in the sound of footsteps that came from behind the two of them.

" Are you two done?"

The voice belonged to another man.

Almost as tall and lanky as Esposito, and with nearly the same bearing said other man he wore a set of blue fatigues with a name patch on the left chest in bold gold letters it read Magruder. Castle noticed Esposito freeze and become a little tence.

" We're almost done, lieutenant." Castle kept his eye on the detective. Somewhere it seemed as if the man he knew and respected as a friend had something of a past. What Castle didn't see was that Magruder was also eyeballing him. A very narrow glint forming across his features.

" Have we met before?" Magruder asked.

" I don't know, I meet lots of people." Castle answered as truthfully as he dared. Esposito noticed Castle's demeanor changing. There was something about Magruder that made the easy going novelist rather uneasy. Interesting... Esposito filed the thought away for later as the two men politely said goodby and left.

_Three days later,_

Castle entered Homicide the usual way and found Esposito waiting for him.

" What's going on? you said urgent." the 2 men walked in the direction of Esposito's desk.

" That's because it is. Take a look in the captain's office."

Castle did as requested and very nearly froze to the ground. There was Magruder again, dressed in the usual business suit and tie that all captains seemed to favor. He glanced up from his reading just briefly, motioning the two men to come inside.


	3. Chapter 3

Months of hard work lead to one thing. A repeat performance of the night Montgomery died. But this one would be different.

Castle had slipped into the aircraft hangar, hoping that he wouldn't be spotted or he'd be in deep. Deep, why did he and Beckett always go deep and end up in these kinds of troubles? Silently he came to realize that it was their nature, their quest for truth and justice. In short, Beckett rubbed of on him, and he liked it. He switched back to what he was doing when he heard voices in the distance.

Using the shadows of the stored aircraft to his advantage just like he imagined Derrick would have done Castle began working his way through the hangar.

Near the middle of the hangar he saw a glimpse of Kate, in a small shed on the far end of the hangar,apparently tied to a chair. And next to her was the maniac, of which they only knew his first name; Dick. He noticed the lights were dimmed.

He wasn't close enough to hear the words despite having researched lip reading. So again Castle moved, only to be stopped by the sound of a very metallic click that could only belong to one sort of object, namely a gun that had just been cocked.

Slowly Castle turned around and faced his opponent. Something clicked in his mind. Why was it that nearly all the really bad guys would be such big and burly guys. " Move, he wants to see you."

Pouting, and not really believing his failure, Castle did as he was told.

Trying to act as sullen as possible, again like he imagined Derrick Storm would do, Castle followed the directions the man gave him. Until they finally got to the small shed on the far side of the hangar. Without saying a word the gunman motioned him to enter.

Castle let his shoulders sag even more. By then the door was open

He was pushed in rather hard.

And, as he got up the door was closed and locked again. " So much for stereotyping." He muttered it more to himself.

" Castle?" The person in question turned to his left and despite the meager lighting noticed the shape of someone on a chair, tied up. He'd recognize the voice anywhere though. " Beckett?"

He ran to the chair, and started to untie the detective " What happened?" She didn't look as if she had been badly treated. This was rather to the contrary of what Castle had expected.

" This was Dick's doing. He's brought us here for a reason." Castle pretty much figured that out on his own. The clues he got on Beckett her abduction made sure of that the two would be together right here right now, but why?

That was when the lights in the little shed were turned to full power.

" Touching, very touching."

The icy chill that gripped Castle's heart must have shown on his face as Beckett tried to reassure him that it would be alright. For the first time in his life Castle didn't believe his female partner.

" It's good to see you guys together at last." Beckett who was now free was glancing at Castle " I'm not sure I agree with your assessment, Dick." Castle responded.

" Oh come on now, Richard. You two needed this and dare I say everybody that said you two need to be together are right in saying that."

Now Beckett chimed in " What gives you the right to bud in to our personal lives?" Dick's only response was to smile and as Kate saw the smile appear she noticed something familiar and disturbingly evil about it at the same time.

She cast a brief glance towards Castle who now looked uncertain. Where was that strength that kept him going? And what did he know about Dick? Questions began coming up on a most inopportune time, and Kate had more then a little trouble clearing her mind.

" Finishing what I started is, perhaps the most logical explanation to why we're here together." Castle and Beckett remained silent, a brief glance between the two showing that the time for action wasn't there yet and that there was a lot more to Dick's story, a hell of a lot more.

" What did you start?" Castle asked.

" The bloodline, Richard." With an undue calm, Dick produced a thick manilla envelope and tossed it in the direction of the couple. Beckett nodded her ascent, so he went forward and picked it up.

" Open it, much will be revealed." Again that disturbingly evil smile.

Castle hesitated, but as Kate put a hand on his shoulder he went ahead. A number of pictures and letters fell out of the envelope as he tore it open. Both Kate and Richard knelt down to look at just a few of the pics. Some of them were about him, taken at book launch parties from a distance ofcourse. Others, some of them older, were of him and Alexis. A number were taken from a distance, others, not so much. A few of the shots also featured Alexis, with Castle not present.

Castle gulped. Beckett noticed this as he quietly handed her the photos. She studied them with interest and then threw them to the floor. " How dare you!" She nearly shrieked, this was too much even for her. The assault on her she had more or less expected but this was something else!

" This was all on purpose, wasn't it?" Castle's question to Dick didn't make sense but it made Beckett shut up as she felt she should listen to her partner and as she could see on his face it would be a rather compelling reason. And there were still the ever present goons with the guns

" So why me and her?" Castle bend his head in Beckett her direction.

" I'm a dead man walking, Rick, a tumor in a place the surgeons can't reach." Again Beckett noticed a very tense look across her partner's features. And why was that madman calling him Rick? Did they actually know each other?

Dick went on to explain that dead men usually had a last request of some sort granted. And now that he knew his end was coming he wanted to do right, just once.

" Why him, and why kidnap me?" Beckett was now beginning to suspect what Dick was on about, and she wasn't really sure she'd like finding out the truth.


End file.
